Planning is good because it sets events in motion, gets you & others organised & makes you take action

On the road of spiritual development, there is this tension between the desire to plot and plan and relaxing into trusting the universe that life will provide.

Planning

The need to plan is an aspect of the conscious mind that is important yet can become a dominating force on your life and therefore get in the way of your full potential. The conscious mind plots and tends to hold on tight to how things are going to be. It creates an unhappy tension when things do not happen as you imagined them in your fantasy of the future. Your conscious mind may deem the outcome a failure or unsuccessful because your imagining was not exactly like the end result.

Planning is good because it sets events in motion, gets you and others organised and makes you take action. It sets intention and by having goals you can sustain that intention throughout the process.To be too rigid about how things will unfold may get in the way of the flow. It may be a more convoluted road than you thought. In your experience when did anything you start end up as you imagined it? In my experience I cannot think of anything that has worked out exactly as I planned.

Trust

Once the plan is set in motion and the energy begins to flow, a universal machine moves into action behind the scenes to create what you planned. Many things need to come together to make this happen and that may not be as straight forward as you had in mind.

This is where trust is important. Once you have your plan, relax rather than be tense and rigid about how it unfolds. Listen to your intuition, notice the signs life gives you to alter things, take guidance from many sources and above all trust that the universe unfolds just as it must for everyone’s higher good.This is something the subconscious mind can do to serve you. It is open and sensitive to what the universe is saying. It has no investment in the outcome like the conscious mind does. To the subconscious there is only the flow of being.

Happy Tension

This is a hard thing for the conscious mind to do because it has to relinquish control. It is the balance between the conscious and subconscious that creates a happy tension that leads to success. Conscious mind dominance often leads to stress, anxiety and exasperation. Subconscious dominance often leads to floating along rarely achieving anything. Get the balance right and you have a happy tension between planning and going with the flow, control and trust, personal power and universal power, human energy and spirit energy.

When we created Avis and Brown we had a fantasy of how that would look. As the journey has unfolded it has not worked out as planned. The context has been far larger than I imagined, much more beautiful and infinitely more fulfilling. It has also been far more challenging, the learning exceptional and the outcomes humbling. The conscious mind can see only so far. The universe sees all. The subconscious connects to that universal vision and it is that we must learn to trust as well as our own ability and potential.

In my experience there are three schools of thought around the spiritual path. There are those that embrace it, those that disregard it and those that are undecided. The people who embrace it feel comfortable communicating with electromagnetic energy and the spirit world. Often they are people who have been able to do it all their lives. Perhaps they embraced it at an early age. There are many who try to ignore the communication when they are young and come back to it later in life. There are others who make it a life- long denial. Whichever camp they fall in, these people are very intuitive and sensitive to the energy of people and places around them. Somehow their minds are wired to be sensitive to the electromagnetic energy of the world around them and they sense things that other people do not feel. They are more tuned into their subconscious, left brain, the part that is sensitive to electromagnetic energy and the messages it conveys. The more they use this innate skill, the more powerful these skills become. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those that disregard it. Often they are not sensitive to the electromagnetic energy of the world around them. They are very right- brained, logic driven people who look for reason in all that they do. Because they are not consciously sensitive to electromagnetic energy, to them the world of insights, intuition and spirit does not exist and so they dismiss it when people talk about it. Then there is the range of people who are open- minded enough to consider the evidence available that points to the fact that electromagnetic energy communicates with us in the physical world all the time in the form of insights, intuition, signs and spirit interactions. It is to these undecided people who are open to the idea of spirit, yet may be sceptical of it, that this blog is addressed.

A healthy scepticism

I fall into this latter category. I have been drawn to spirituality all my life. Ever since my elder brother spoke to me when I was a young child of philosophy, spirituality and psychology, I have been fascinated by the power of the human mind and how we interact with the world around us. I have been drawn to study many global religions, traditions and cultures as well as native traditions from America, Australia and Africa and found that they have a huge amount in common with the Islam, Judaism, Christianity (the Abrahamic religions), Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism with regard to the structure of the universe and the nature of spirituality. To me they say the same things in different ways and I fail to understand why they argue over what is fundamentally the same truth. Religion is not the sole custodian of spiritual teaching. In fact much of religion has no spiritual relevance at all. Spirituality cannot be limited to any particular religion or teaching. Even my beloved science, which I had carved a career in at Cambridge in Biochemistry and Neuroscience, talked about Quantum Physics and the parallels with spiritual teachings throughout the world. All kinds of books such as The Tao of Physics, The Field, The Holographic Universe, Blackfoot Physics, The Dancing Wu Li Masters and our own Nourish the Flame Within discuss this science- spirituality connection.

Intellectual Spirituality

I have been exposed to an intellectual spirituality, as many people have in our modern world, with dashings of experience that tell me my intellect is pointing in the right direction. There is simply too much evidence as far as I am concerned for there not to be an electromagnetic and spirit world with which we interact and communicate.

Yet how can it be proved? This is where the intellect must take a leap of faith and build some trust. It is precisely this fact that makes the open- minded person sceptical, suspicious that they will be taken for a ride, duped, have the wool pulled over their eyes and taken advantage of. Indeed, the profession of spirituality is full of charlatans that prey on the needy and the hopeful. This is not Spirituality. Every profession is full of those with integrity and those that want to make a quick fortune at any cost. Choose carefully. Making a poor choice does not negate the electromagnetic, spirit world and the power and validity of intuition and insight. It simply undermines your trust. Finding good teachers will deepen your trust in something that you intuitively know to be true. At least, this is the experience I have had. We also have the throw- back to witch hunts and the fear Religion has instilled in its congregations that plague our consciousness as a society and inform our prejudice and scepticism. All of these historic episodes influence our conscious acceptance of a spirit world. There is mounting scientific evidence to support these notions that people throughout time have experienced.

The Limitations of a Conscious Mind

The conscious mind is a powerful tool, trained to think, analyse, consider and ponder endlessly, from the moment it wakes up to the second it falls asleep. No matter how hard you try to use it to connect to the higher vibrations of electromagnetic energy, it will not happen. The subconscious mind holds the tools to connecting to these higher vibrations of electromagnetic energy. It is your ability to consciously listen to the subconscious that requires cultivation. To experience spirituality, you have to place the conscious mind aside and feel it through your subconscious senses. Meditation, contemplation and prayer are three ways in which you can calm the conscious mind and develop the skill of listening to whatever the subconscious is picking up from the electromagnetic information all around you. There are many other ways as well, including drumming, Reiki, dancing and movement, chanting and singing, sound and silence to name a few.

Which path should you take?

The path you are drawn to take- the kind of answer the conscious mind hates because it is too vague. You can only truly answer it with your subconscious mind, through hunches, insights and intuitions that guide you through your life. There are as many paths as there are people in the world, as each person takes an individual journey that brings them closer to the truth. My journey is unlike any other person’s path. We may walk with people for a while (teachers, mentors and guides). Ultimately, it is each person’s responsibility to discover their journey, using the full power of the brain, both conscious and subconscious, as well as the intellect, intuition, intention and choice to find the way.

Humanity is connected through a network that may be thought of as The Tree of Life

Many spiritual traditions speak of the Tree of Life. For example, the Bible speaks of it in Eden, in Islam it is known as the Lode Tree and of course Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi Tree where he attained his great enlightenment. The tree is a powerful metaphor and archetype throughout spiritual teachings and I have wondered why that is for some time.

Recently, I had a meditation experience that may have answered the question for me. I never say that things are answered for sure, as certainty stops questioning and the potential for growth and learning. Yet it fits in so many ways and I feel strongly that it speaks of the truth.

I was practicing one of the spiritual connection meditations from our book, Nourish the Flame Within, specifically the third in the first series, Connection to the God Force. My experience was that I was a leaf on a tree and that if I allowed my awareness to remain restricted, I was only concerned with my own world and my limited perception. As I allowed my awareness to expand, I became aware of the leaves around me (perhaps a metaphor for family and friends?). Later, my awareness spread to the smaller branches and then the larger ones. It felt like I was connected to community and nation. Eventually, my attention spread to the trunk, the concept of Humanity. Fully aware, I could feel the flow of energy from leaf to trunk and back again, sensing my place and role in Humanity, nation, community and self. It was an amazing experience.

So, the Tree of Life, or the Tree of Humanity, shows that we are an inter- connected whole, each of us playing a significant role. Each one of us feeds the whole and is fed by the whole. Just as the leaf turns sunlight into food for the tree and the tree brings nutrients and water from the ground through the trunk and branches to the leaf, your very existence fuels humanity, while humanity gives you what you need to be your full and magnificent self. Actions of the individual affect all of humanity. This is how a tree works. This is how humanity works. Even though you may not know what good or harm you are doing spiritually, you are affecting things in a small and significant way.

Beyond that, the metaphor allows us to see how broadly the Tree of Humanity is inter- connected to the Universal Whole. Nothing exists in isolation. Water and nutrients in the soil are drawn up by the tree, while ultra violet light from the sun is used to create food in the leaf. Every cell of the entire tree benefits from this two- way relationship. Spiritually we are the same. We are nothing without the power from the earth and the sun. We are diminished versions of ourselves if we isolate ourselves from the Universal Energy of White Light. We are nothing without each other collectively.

Many spiritual teachings show us that an act of kindness is kind to all humanity and that an act of hatred and fear affects all humanity. I am beginning to understand this wisdom. It is easy to become disconnected again after the meditation. The truth is you are always connected, to humanity, the planet and the universe. The meditation is an invitation to become sensitive to this truth and carry it with you throughout your day, to inform all your actions, decisions and thoughts. So many of us seek peace in society and in our own hearts. Perhaps this is one of ways in which we can bring peace to ourselves and those around us. In time it will spread. For now, let us begin with a simple meditation, which starts with a simple breath and an invitation to connect to White Light.

Electromagnetism is a powerful force in the universe. How can we learn its secrets?

As we approach the turning of the year, we contemplate the past and what the future will hold more than usual. This is why we are reminded of the god of the Ancient Greek pantheon, Janus, for whom January is named. According to Crystal Links “Janus was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, and of one universe to another.”

This year has been an incredible journey on the road of energy for me, with insights and revelations that have been astonishing. I would like to share one with you now that is particularly relevant to Janus’ symbolism of transition: from one condition and vision to another.

In researching for our books I have been overwhelmed with the detail of science that I have learned. In boiling it down to its simplest and most important terms for spiritual growth, electromagnetism (EM) is the thing I have been focussing on most. It is from EM that everything stems. It is one of the most important building forces of our universe, how it develops and evolves, how we interact and relate to it and how we connect to and empathise with each other.

To fully appreciate the significance of EM and how it shapes our lives, we need to take on a new vision, see things from a different perspective and come to understand the true condition of the human experience.

EM is the force that connects negatively charged electrons to the positively charged nucleus of an atom. It is this relationship that marks the individual chemistry of every atom and allows atoms to connect together to form molecules. EM generates fields of energy that vibrate at particular frequencies. Fields from atoms merge and become congruent to create molecules, yet the atoms retain their individual nature. Fields of smaller molecules merge and become congruent to create larger molecules. The more atoms are grouped together the larger their accumulated field, whether it is a cell, mountain, tree, planet, human or star. Yet, no matter how large the group, each individual part retains its nature as well as contributes to the whole.

The basic chemistry is the same and EM is a common force between them. EM plays a role in all interactions between atoms, generating fields of energy, whether alive or not. People, animals, buildings, landscapes all have a unique EM signature that can be felt.

There is a phenomenal amount of EM information for anyone to process in the world around us. Even in remote nature every leaf and blade of grass gives off some EM information. The message is much noisier in city life with electricity, TV, radio and wi- fi signals all complicating the EM information. EM is felt through the intuitive senses of the subconscious far more sensitively than with the conscious part of the mind.This means we are often not aware of the immense amount of information available to us.

As a society, we are mostly focussed on the primary qualities of the conscious mind: logic, reason, words, maths and the rational. This only explains a small portion of the human experience. There are so many experiences and events that can be explained by an awareness of the subconscious mind whose qualities are less well acknowledged, given less importance and are often mistrusted: intuition, imagination, creativity and insight. One of the reasons the subconscious is better at processing EM signatures is because the subconscious can process around twenty million pieces of information a second. In comparison, the conscious mind can process forty pieces of information. As a species in general, if we can cultivate a more powerful subconscious awareness, we would be better placed tointerpret the information within these fields.

What I would hope for in this coming year and for the future is a focus on a new vision and a new condition of being. Let’s begin to explore the power of the subconscious more openly. There are so many ways to make that subconscious connection, from meditation to mindfulness and Reiki and martial arts to prayer and contemplation.

Whatever methods we use, they allow us to learn and trust that subconscious voice of insight, intuition and creativity. In turn we can become more aware of a more beautiful and infinitely more complex universe that we are able to interact with, relate to and understand in a way that will bring more peace and harmony to humanity and the world.

As we look back at the past and ahead to the future as Janus, the two- headed god, can do, let us learn to combine the power of both sides of our minds. Rather than through mindless habit use our minds to direct our lives let’s learn to distinguish between the respective skills of the conscious and subconscious and so actively choose which one sits in the driver’s seat of our lives at each moment and harness our greatest gift to do great good in the world and make a positive difference in 2017 and beyond.

I would like to wish you a very merry Christmas. I would like to thank you so much for reading and supporting our blogs over the years. David and I started writing our blog to support our book “Nourish the Flame within” . That book was published in 2012 and that seems like such a long time ago. Next year I hope to publish my second book and I am currently writing my third. So there are lots of exciting things ahead in 2017 for both myself and I hope my readers too.

I have to say that this last year has been something of a challenge for me personally. I have had many of life’s little difficulties thrown in my direction. Life is life and we have to expect these things in our diection from time to time. Where would we be without a challenge or two to stir things up? We are all human and walk a human path, with human experience. Sometimes those experiences will either make or break us.

We can never know exactly what will come our way in life. The spiritual take on experience is that ultimately all experience is good as it allows our soul to grow. I think experience develops us in many ways. Experience allows us to stretch through endeavour and misfortune. Experiencing negative things can be testing and hard to endure. I won’t pretend that people don’t suffer through experience as they often suffer a great deal.

Suffering is a part of life as is happiness and pleasure. It is the other side of the coin. Life has opposites. Each person experiences many things both positive and negative good and bad. It is the mix of experience that ultimately shapes the person. People are not static beings they learn through endeavour, circumstance and experience. However, I know that many people are broken by hard circumstances.

Compassion is an ingredient of the Christmas spirit. Christ taught us to be compassionate. I personally find it very difficult to walk past any homeless person without emptying my purse of change and more. I do not like to see people with a lack of warmth, food and shelter at any time of the year let alone at this, the coldest and most miserable weather wise. We have many homeless people in Britain. Homelessness is not restricted to our country it affects many people all over the world.

Young people who find themselves living on the streets at an early age will be more likely to die an early death. There is a part of my being that does not find this acceptable. When I pass a homeless person I wonder what brought them to that point in their life. Homelessness makes my heart sink. Society makes my heart sink. So many of the young people who find themselves homeless and living on the streets have fled abusive or violent homes and the streets as hard as they are seem preferable to what they leave behind. Isn’t that horrible, isn’t that terrible?

I understand that there will always be a small portion of people, who do not fare well at parenting for many reasons, but children are a blessing to us all a gift from life and deserve the best love and nurturing that society and parents can give. They are the next generation. People and life are both very precious things. Each person and each life offers potential to society.

Homelessness seems to be a large and difficult problem. So once again this year in the bleakest mid winter weather there are too many people living on the streets trying to survive the night, the week the month and the season? I know that many of you will give as I do, help where you can, to these desperate people. Everyone deserves to have love, respect and a roof over their heads.

Lack of money and lack of housing is a difficult issue to address. We can all send our love to the homeless this Christmas. We can all send out our good thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers are energy and energy can move mountains. As a collective energy force we impact and change life. Some people think that thoughts and prayers do nothing. This is not true they connect us to each other in a direct way. They connect us to the power of the universe. I am so fed up with walking through our city streets and seeing so many people living on the streets. If we really wanted an end to it I am sure there would be an end to this situation. I think the issue of the homeless in Britain 2016, is a disgrace to us all. I would like to wish all who find themselves homeless this Christmas joy, happiness and a roof over your heads in 2017.

On a lighter note, I would like to wish you the warmest of Christmas greetings. I hope that Santa brings you all of your Christmas wishes, and may the angels walk through life with you.

Creativity
I consider myself to be a creative person. Creative activity and art gave me great pleasure as a child. I had an early encounter with art that had me hooked. As a babe in arms I was carried to the kitchen table by my mother and placed on it. She took a pen and paper and drew a cat for my amusement. My mother was no great artist and she drew the simplest of renderings. She had two circles placed one on top of the other. Two triangles for ears and dots for eyes and nose and a half circle for a mouth. Lines for whiskers, and a tail and that was it. I was amazed at that wonderful cat. I remember it so vividly to this day sixty one years later.

Inspiration
Often little things can inspire us. That day something was awakened inside of me. I know all children are awakened by many things. Our senses are awoken very early on in our development. This is a time of discovery of course and a time of wonder. New tastes, smells, touches and visual stimulation are all on offer on a daily basis at this time. From that first encounter with drawing I was hooked. I loved it. From that day on I would look at drawings and illustrations in books. Colour stimulated me as did design from an early age. That early encounter with drawing would be the starting point that would take me to Art College and many hours of my life spent in contemplation and learning of drawing, painting, design and art. So many hours of my life has been spent in this way. All of those hours that I have spent have been a joy to me. Some were painful, in fact very painful but as has often been said by many people, without pain there is no gain.
If my mother were alive today I don’t think she would agree that her humble efforts at drawing a cat had anything to do with taking me on my discovery of art. But it did. My mother encouraged my creativity. She always gave my sisters and me, the tools to be creative with. My mother encouraged drawing, colouring and sewing. In fact she was in favour of all creative activity.
Isn’t it strange how others can influence our behaviour and our path forward in life? Sometimes a chance conversation, a meeting with a person can make a huge difference to our life. Neither I nor my mother had notion of Art College and training when she drew the cat. What she wanted in that moment was to entertain her small child. But her efforts did much more than that. It awakened something deep inside of me. It stirred my soul.

Rules, stories and limiting beliefs
I have many clients who come to me for therapy who have beliefs of unworthiness. These beliefs often start in childhood. They are given deliberately, unconsciously or passively by individuals or society. They are all around us in the media, in the home in families, in education and in society as a whole. People are segregated one from the other on many differences. They may be social, financial, sexual, intellectual, visual, interact, or many more separating factors. We all take some of these separating factors on board to a degree. The roots of feelings of unworthiness can come from the family, school, peers, society the media and are always buried somewhere in the past experience of the individual. It will be from some form of interaction with someone or something that they will have been gained.
Even as quite a young child I understood that society had rules and a story worked out for my life path. I understood what was expected for my future and allowed for me. It is funny how we just absorb unspoken and spoken messages. I remember such sayings as know your place, respect your betters and elders. messages about our self are given to us from an early age. Each generation has their person expectations about what is on offer in life for them. I know my generation did not have it as badly as my parents and grandparents generation, after the war we all got richer and had more options open to us than our parents had in their youth. However limiting interaction was there although perhaps watered down. My mother told me stories of her childhood and how she was made to feel deliberately unworthy and stupid by her teacher at school. She was made to stand in a corner of the school room and called a dunce. my mother was not a dunce at all but that experience scared her on many levels. That was in the 1920’s. I know that today teachers take great pains to encourage their students to be people who aspire and feel worthy.
I have been watching a programme recently on T.V. It was about Victorian Britain and the harsh conditions that the Victorian poor had to endure. They did not have very many options. We all take so much for granted these days. They were kept in their place mainly by economic difference. People with money were considered better than people who were poor. The poor were often portrayed in a very negative light. They were seen as lazy and feckless and the masters of their own circumstances. The Victorian rich did not seem to grasp the fact that economic poverty was created by a lack of funds in the direction of the working classes. By keeping wages unreasonably low they kept these people in economic poverty as well as emotional poverty.

Self-belief
There are many ways to keep people in their place. We can do so by economic means we can do so by emotional constraints. Sometimes they are spoken other times unspoken. Language has great power. The way we use words and the words themselves have great power. Words convey information but they also convey much more. They have a vibrational power that can impact the very heart of the individual. Words are both information and vibration. Something as simple as “who do you think you are.” This sentence can be a put down of the person it is aimed at. Many of us will have had someone say that to us. I know I have and in recent years it has been said about me. Well my response to that question/statement was this: “I know I am Lynette, I am an artist, spiritual teacher, Reiki master, holistic therapist, wife mother and more importantly myself.” The sentence “who do you think you are” has a negative vibrational power, depending on how it is given to the person. If the person is not strong enough or wise enough to understand where the sentence is coming from in the person and their agenda it can be very damaging to the receiver of the sentence. That of course was the point of the sentence in the first place. It was meant to be damaging and destructive to the receiver.
I understood from a very early age that there was something very negative going on in society and some of it was directed at me. Although during my childhood I understood there were negative influences coming in my direction from society, my father gave my sisters and I a very different story of what we could and could not be. He tried to instil in us self-belief. It is not surprising how many people just don’t have it. In my work as a therapist I meet so many people who are left broken people because of limiting negative language that they received as children or young adults. Sometimes they receive it as adults at the hands of other adults such as work colleagues, parents, siblings, friends or spouses.
Great things can come from a place of self-belief. When self-belief is not nurtured or is attacked by others we shrivel and die inside. Our soul or sub-conscious mind is affected as it stores that story of limited self-belief, as our reality. Our soul/sub-conscious mind believes without question what we tell it. In that way we create our reality.
Giving someone a story about themselves to believe can create their reality if they take it on board and act it out. The same applies to oneself. We can also give ourselves a story to believe and act out. That is self-belief, if we give our self a positive story. If we give our self a negative story to act upon that is lack of self-belief.
Mantras are a great tool to help nurture self-belief. In a mantra we can give our self over and over again a positive statement that if give many times we will in time believe.

Art touched my soul
Art uses the intellectual, visual, auditory and emotional capacities of the person. The produce of art touches the soul of people. It does not matter what art it is, music, dance, theatre, drawing painting etc., it all touches us.
We touch our own soul first. We first touch our own soul in the creation of art. For in that touching we understand the soul of others. My mother stimulated my intellectual awareness, my visual and emotional awareness by drawing the cat. She also touched my soul. I knew what a cat was. The drawing gave me a paper representation that expressed the experience I had of cat. That touched my soul on some level. It still does.
My mother and I connected in the moment she drew the cat, and also beyond that time through that act. Of course my mother and I had many connections, both positive and negative, but none carried by me in the same way as the drawing of the cat.
We sometimes touch each other with simple things. Those simple things may pass without question or notice. However they can have great impact on the giver, receiver or both. The quality of our interactions with others is important as we all leave each other with something through those interactions.

Negative Careers Officer
When I was in my teens and still at school, I had to see the careers officer. My encounter with this woman was not good. She asked me what I wanted to do and I said go to art college. Her reply to that was we can’t all be doctors and dentists. She then gave me a list of very unsuitable alternatives to Art College. None of which gave me any hope of fulfilment. I am not sure why she thought I should not go to Art College as I always had talent at art and an aptitude for it. There was not a moment of encouragement from that woman. I am so pleased I did not listen to that woman for a moment. I remember coming out of that interview thinking, “rubbish.” I will not forget that awful woman till the day I die. My mother had awoken my love or art and this woman wanted to crush it.
As we can awaken talents and interests in each other so too we can quash them. For every person that awakens another’s soul there are those who would send it to sleep. Often this is done with the use of negative opinions and expressions. Fear is a big driver of this kind of behaviour.
• Fear of the other person.
• Fear of the other person developing self-power.
• Fear of the other person improving.
• Fear of being overshadowed.
• Fear if being left behind.
• Fear of being no longer equal.
• Fear of being considered less than.
• Fear of the person breaking out of their allotted place and story.
• Fear of not measuring up.

I don’t think the careers officer’s opinion of me came from a place of fear. Although I am not too sure what she was basing her opinion, I have a theory or two.

Nurturing
Nurturing, support and development of the human intellect, soul, spirit, and emotions take humanity forward. Crushing of those elements at best keeps people and society static. At worst it causes frustration, dissatisfaction ill health or worse. Many people who we consider geniuses came from unlikely backgrounds. Many defied society’s rules and stories for them to bring us all their personal brand of creativity, whatever that was. The human soul must be nurtured and not crushed. The human soul has a right to be free to express and be creative. All souls have a right to grow and a need to grow. All humanity benefits from positive human interaction and expression. I celebrate creative expression for it is the expression of the human soul.

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Have you wondered what people mean when they refer to the mind- body connection? How does this relate to energy? What role does energy play in this connection between body and mind?

One of the key forces of the mind is emotion, feelings that flow through the mind and body created by the release of hormones, neurotransmitters and other chemicals that affect the body and mind in a myriad of ways. These chemicals are released as a response to events and situations that occur in your life. There are many chemicals for the body to choose from. Which ones you choose are determined by your beliefs and values, so that you might be anxious about the prospect of talking in public because you believe it to be a threatening situation, or you might be excited by the idea because it is thrilling to be sharing your ideas to a group of people. The quickening heart, the shortness of breath, the strained voice are all symptoms of one emotional response. The steady beat of the heart, the calm breathing and the conviction in your strong voice are the symptoms of a different response. Neither emotion is right or wrong. It is just how you feel about it. Those feelings create an emotional response in your body. This cascade of events occurs because the mind and the body are connected.

Energy and emotion

Emotion is energy in motion (e- motion). All things are energy and all energy flows. Emotion is a particular energy flow that is part of the human experience bringing you the highs and lows of living. Emotions can be joyous and painful. That joy and pain is felt most keenly when it flows, as it courses through your body and you experience that flow of energy. Sometimes that flow can be over- whelming as you feel the intensity of it. The joy of loving and feeling loved and the pain of bereavement are two more common examples. These emotions are sometimes so powerful that you cannot stop them flowing.

Some times in your life you might have been taught not to express your emotions. As children it is common to be told not to cry or not to be so silly, to grow up when upset or not to display anger. These restrictions are sometimes cultural and can also be because the people around you cannot handle these emotions themselves and so feel uncomfortable with them. In a desperate effort to control the situation, children are told by parents to stifle their emotions. Humiliation at school by peers can be a powerful learning ground for suppressing emotion.

When energy is trapped

So what is really going on inside of you when this happens? From the point of view of energy, the emotion you are feeling in that moment is energy in flow creating a response in your body that generates anger, sadness, jealousy or whatever, manifesting certain behaviour- you cry, shout, scream etc. When told to stop, you try to stem that flow, stopper it like a cork in a champagne bottle or holding tight onto the lead of your dog when it is trying to get away. This takes effort and energy of it’s own and the body tightens to contain it. Muscles stiffen to hold on to the energy as it tries to flow. Because the energy is contained, the bodily response subsides. Perhaps unknown to you, the energy is still inside you, trying to flow and held back by your body through muscle tension.

You know this if you have ever relived a past experience- the emotion resurfaces as if the event had just happened- powerful and emotional. Over many years, with repeated events such as these, the body becomes increasingly tense, limiting movement, strength, breathing, posture, digestion, presence and preventing relaxation that allows the body to act naturally. With so much emotion trapped in the body, the mind also becomes tense, as it has to monitor the muscles that are trapping this energy and make sure nothing gets released. Over time, this takes up more and more of your energy, splitting your mind and body, making it harder to focus on the present and relax into the moment.

Restricted energy in motion manifests as tension throughout the body

The consequences of this learned behaviour over time can be severe. As well as reducing emotional range because you do not allow yourself to express more than just mild emotions, the mind and body become tight, increasing stress, accelerating the aging process, reducing learning and adaptability, preventing flexibility and agility of body and mind and affecting health as well as well- being.

When you release energy

How do you release this trapped emotion? What is most important here is to do so in a safe and appropriate way. Sometimes it might be important to seek professional support in dealing with emotions that are otherwise challenging to handle and work through. Meditation can be an excellent method for releasing tension and becoming mindful of your feelings when that emotion is released. Yoga too can be a brilliant method for stretching out tension throughout the body, creating calmness and relaxation in mind and body. Massage, reflexology, acupuncture and shiatsu are all methods of relaxing the body and therefore the mind as part of a programme to bring the mind and body into balance and towards well- being. There is another energetic advantage to relaxing body and mind and allowing the energy to flow through you rather than be trapped inside: that is connection. When relaxed you are more connected, more present and open to the fullness of the moment. Here you connect not just to your self, but to the world and humanity. Through doing this work, you reconnect to your natural state, connected to the expansive whole of the universe.

Over to you

How do you experience the mind- body connection? How do you allow your emotions to flow? What can you share about stifling and suppressing emotions? We’d love to hear from you and share in the discussion about energy, so come on over and post your comments in the box at the bottom of the page.

Pass it on

If you know someone who would enjoy this blog or find it useful, please pass it on and share in the power of energy.

There are many books on the market that talk about the mind and body connection or the mind and life connection. Books such as the Secret and authors such as Louise Hay have used and shared this mind- life, mind- body understanding. Hypnotherapy is a practice that centres on those connections and uses them for the benefit of the client’s health and well-being. The connection between mind and body and mind and life is very well understood by health and well-being professionals.

We also have a connection to the Universe. We are the Universe. We are not separate from the Universe. Every moment of every day we have a profound connection to the totality of the Universe. If you consider yourself separate from the Universe please answer this. Where did you come from? What made you? What are you made from?

You are energy

You are energy through and through. You are made of the stuff of the universal stars. You are no different to them. You have your place amongst them. They are energy and so too are you. The Universe came into being a long time ago and we can say it has a life of its own. It too lives and breathes as you do. Stars come and they go. The Universe experiments with energy on many levels, life forms come and go depending on how successful they are within the universal experiment. You are made of the stuff of the stars. The universe created you to live and breathe. It created you to live a life. Life can be challenging. Many things both good and bad happen within a life. People cross each other’s paths, sometimes those meetings and crossing are good and happy ones with fulfilling outcomes. Other times they are not so. If they are considered good or bad it will depend on the view points and agendas of those doing the analysis. Each person has free will and choice. Each person has a mind of their own. Each person has thought patterns and processes. These thought patterns and processes are unique to the individual. The individual ultimately gets to choose how they think. Their thought processes help them to make sense of the world and understand it to a degree.

Your life influence

It is not commonly understood by the general public that there is a mind connection with life itself. We think from the point of view that thinking and action will bring about a result. It is true that thinking, decision and action will do that. Results will be gained efficiently by using thinking decision and action and should not be underestimated as it plays an important role in taking the individual forward in a chosen direction. However what is not as easily understood by people in general is that they have another field of influence upon life. This is an energetic one. We can bring situations or people in our direction by our energetic connection to life and the Universe on all levels.

The Universe thinks and heals itself

The Universe is a thing. It lives, breaths and thinks. It has consciousness throughout. Human beings are also energy with consciousness. We too are energy that thinks. It is like two heart beats, the universal heart beat and the human heart beat. They can beat in synchronisation or out of synchronisation. So we can be conscious and energetically in tune with the Universe or out of tune with the Universe.

We all have influence on our lives, the lives of others and our thoughts and decisions through physical interaction, conscious thought and energy interaction and manipulation. There is an energy that permeates the Universe that influences everything. It is the catalyst that fires the Universe on all and every level. This energy is called Universal energy. It is known by many names and every culture has a name for it. It’s made up physically of a combination of electricity and magnetism. It is electromagnetic energy. It permeates all life on all levels. It is a carrier or information. It carries thoughts, ideas and beliefs around and throughout the Universe. It is a universal telegraph wire. It carries information everywhere. This background energy is known to science and they are calling it “The field”. Esoteric people and healers have called it Universal energy, Chi, Ki, Psychic, and Pranic energy amongst other names. It has been known to man for many thousands of years and the Chinese have understood its healing properties and how to exploit them for five thousand years.

Transferring Universal information

Everything you think and feel is carried into the world as energy. It is carried around the earth and out into the Universe on the back of Universal energy. Your thoughts are transferred through Universal energy to all parts of the Universe. We have all heard of the Aboriginal people of Australia and the fact that they have telepathic abilities. If what I have said holds water and it does, then this is a perfect explanation to those abilities.

You have both connection to and influence upon the Universe. You are part of the Universe and a part that makes up the totality of the Universe. Your thoughts and actions and deeds add to or take away from the Universe. You are important to the Universe. There is a responsibility to the Universe by you to it. Whether you consciously acknowledge that responsibility or not is your free will and choice.

Your Universal life

The Universe acknowledges you and the life it gave you. It will interact with you on many levels. It gave your life to you and in time it will take that life back. How you live that life is your free will and choice. If you interact with the Universe consciously, this is too your free will and choice. It is for you to understand that the choice is yours and you can exercise it at will. The Universe will respond to your thoughts and actions. Not with fire and lightening but with situations, people and circumstance to your ultimate benefit.

Benefit comes in many textures. Some rough and some smooth. What you may feel benefits you may not be the same thought and understanding to the Universe. However, it is not the point of living to give you a hard time to punish you. We are strengthened by being stretched. We always have the Universe’s ear when things are unbearable to us. Speaking your truth, thoughts, wants, needs and desires to the Universe is not seen as selfish but a necessary part of your right and growth. The Universe hears you. A word of caution here: please be careful of what you ask for. Harmful thoughts, deeds, and desires always have repercussions. We are all human and sometimes each of us may fall a little short. This is part of our learning and growth. To set our own boundaries of good and right is a good thing. To understand that our desires affect others is a good thing. To abuse our position in the world is a bad thing. Harm to others deliberately done is not acceptable to the Universe and should not be acceptable to you. Fairness and love is a good starting point in any situation. Selfishness, harshness and greed will not be seen well. You may have selfish and harmful desires in the short term as they may be part of your growth and growth to others. What feels bad to us we seldom engage in twice by choice. Basically what I am saying is this: we grow by experience and sometimes we do not get things correct. No one is perfect, we are perfecting ourselves daily. It also must be said that others feel our energy and thoughts by way of energy and if they feel bad, we will be seen in that light by those who engage with us.

Interacting with the Universe

We can ask the Universe for direct and positive input into our lives, health, and living situations. The Universe responds to those requests. We interact with the Universe every moment of the day and do so largely without conscious thought on the matter. If we give our interaction conscious thought and conscious interaction we have more of an influence upon outcomes.

We think things into being on either an energetic level or a physical level. For anything to come into being it must be preceded by a thought first. When I learnt how to design many decades ago one of the things that were drilled into me by the design process is the fact that change happens by my conscious thought. An idea comes into being by thought first then execution second. Along the way in the execution process the idea can be changed manipulated and honed. It is the same with the manipulation of energy. We have a thought or an idea and that is then communicated to the Universe and then the Universe responds by moving energy to bring it into being.

Whatever you want or wish for and even if it seems impossible; tell the Universe what it is. Ask the Universe to move situations in your direction to bring about the change that you desire. For your life to go in a certain direction you have to bring about the physical change or you have to ask the universe to do it for you. What the Universe will do will show you how to make the change by bringing people, ideas, or situations in your direction. Sometimes and more often than would be supposed it will just drop things in your lap. You can ask for many things from the Universe and material things are amongst those that can be asked for. They will not always be granted but if you don’t ask you probably will not get it unless you physically do it for yourself. The Universe makes the path to what you want and need easier and smoother for you.

Steering your life

You have a life that you can steer in this direction or that, according to your own desires. The Universe has a role in that life as it gave it to you. You are part of the Universe and it has a vested interest in you and your life. Day by day you live and grow and the Universe helps you to do that. It supplies the ingredients for life.

So what are your desires and wishes? Whatever they are as you think them whisper them to the universal forces and ask those forces for a direction toward them. The Universe points the way forward.

I was ill for a long time as I have said in previous blogs. I recently reconnected with an old friend who asked me, “When you were teaching me all of those years ago where you unwell?” “Well yes of course I was” I said. I asked her if I was any different and she said “Yes, I had a lot more energy”. A fibre myalgia client said to me that people just do not understand how ill one is with this illness. Fibre myalgia and M.E. are similar illnesses. “If you had a hand or arm missing people would see your pain and difficulty. Because the pain you feel is internal they can’t see it and so don’t understand the levels of physical pain you are coping with”, she said. This is very true and I would support that entirely.

There is a mental fog that is attached to this illness and the sufferers mental thinking is diminished for the duration of the illness. Some days it is worse than others of course. I found that the things that were so easy in the past were difficult on every level. Anything physical was hard and anything that required my mental capacity was also difficult as my brain just would not work properly.

I am a trained artist and designer and all of my life from my childhood I have used my creative capacity. When I was ill it was almost impossible for me to do anything creative. For about half a decade I did pretty much nothing but sleep. I could not paint, draw or design and it all felt lost to me. I read a lot during those times when I had a break in my illness. That reading took my on a new path. One that I had contemplated years earlier, but had set aside for my first love art.

My love of art started when I was a baby. My mother drew for me a cat. I must have been no more than eighteen months old as I know I was still being carried by her. I never forgot that day she drew the cat. There are times, days, circumstances, people and moments that touch us. They are the jewels of our life. Illness diminishes our capacity to engage fully with life. Both illness and life are experiences. My experience with illness has changed my life. That experience now helps me to connect to others who are going through the same or similar and help them on a road of recovery. For many people illness is a temporary inconvenience. For some it marks the end of their life and for others a road that has to be accepted and endured. Illness can be embraced, endured or fought. It is up to the individual and their circumstances what path is taken. There is no right or wrong way to emotionally deal with illness. The individual decides. I fought my way back to well health. I looked for those answers that would enable me to go home back to myself.

That road home challenged me on many levels. It took me from my own temporary resignation to my horrible situation to a deeper understanding of the human body, life, spirit, soul, and the forces of nature and the universe. Would I change anything? That is a difficult question to answer. I hated being ill and loosing every aspect of myself and self-respect. It is difficult to live with oneself, in illness. I looked in the mirror and I did not see Lynette for years. The strong feisty lady who rolls up her sleeves and gets on with it had gone. The struggle she endured during those ill years was immense on all levels, emotional, physical, mental and spiritual. It was a hard horrible time.

I came through it stronger, wiser, and clearer in my understanding of many aspects of life, more knowledgeable and more skilled. So my difficult time gave me something. It took something and gave me something else in return. So, would I change it? Probably not on balance, I think. I am still here with a somewhat different outlook on life. To be honest I am grateful to the universe for all it has given me over the past sixty years of my life. What is a little bit of fog between the universe and I?

I read something said about Reiki recently. I read, “Reiki is said to be a spiritual practice. However it is more than that”.

That statement implies the description of “spiritual practice” does not express what Reiki is. It implies the idea of being a spiritual practice is in some way insignificant to other considerations of what that person thinks Reiki is. What they are basically saying I think, is that if we describe Reiki as a spiritual practice it does not tell us the true worth and ability of it.

Being a spiritual practice, is the very highest of what Reiki is. It does not make Reiki less in any way. We have to take a look at the word “Spiritual” and determine what that is. Recently someone said to me that they consider themselves to be Spiritual and not religious and I asked them, what is the difference? The person could not give me an answer because they had not thought about it thoroughly enough. It was a clever and fashionable statement but did not have substance for that person. They did not have an answer to my question.

To consider the word spiritual we perhaps to look at the word religious also and look at them side by side.

Let’s start with the word religion. I feel that many people today have a negative view of religion and use the idea of spirituality in its place so as not to be associated with any particular religion but showing some reverence to something greater. Maybe religious history is partly to blame. This negative view maybe in part due to all of that fighting back stabbing, killing, abuse and downright dishonestly that many religions have engaged in over time, that have caused so many of us to just not wish to even hear the word religion spoken. It could be said that which is meant to nurture the human soul and spirit have thrown dirty water on the task. So it is not surprising that many are left feeling cold at the very thought of the word religion. Religions main task is to throw light on the path to God; instead it too can be bogged down with earthly experience. Difficult indeed to heave one foot on the earth and on in heaven.

Now what do we mean by spiritual? To consider the word spiritual we first have to understand the word “Sprit.” What is spirit? Often the word soul and spirit are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. They do not mean the same thing. Many people if not most people think of their body as who they are. “I am my body.” “My body must be beautiful because if my body is perfect and beautiful people will perceive a beautiful me.” Are we a sum total of our body or are we more than our body? The body becomes a mess in time because it ages, and so are we now not beautiful because our body may not be so?

To find the real beauty of a person you must look deeper. It is located inside of the person that is where the beauty lay. The beauty lay in their thoughts, ideas, actions, and personality. Those things allow the person to have interaction with the world on a deeper level. What are we to call those bits of the person as a collective expression? Are those things part of the mind or are they more than just mental thinking capacity of the person? The mind is a tool by which we make sense of information on an intellectual level. We analyse the world and life with the mind. We say we think thoughts and they happen in the brain which is the mind. The soul is not the mind it does not analyse at all it just is. We will come back to all of these words and ideas latter. So that leaves the word sprit and if spirit is not the soul what is it?

Let’s recap.

We have so far spoken about spiritual practice, we started with that and also religion and the differences in those two things. We have also spoken about the difference in the soul and the spirit. We further touched on the body and what is that and our ideas of the body and who we are. What a muddled mine field it all is. Please let me give you my take on this it may help you to make some sense of it all.

The mind

That defiantly is where the analytical processes of the person take place. We all think our thoughts in the brain. All information about our external life will be filtered by this part of us through the senses. We make sense of what is around us via the senses and the brain. We analyse that information with the brain and then that information is stored somewhere in us. We think about what is coming at us via life and our senses and then store that information. We do not think consciously about every bit of information that comes at us form moment to moment as there is just too much of it for the brain to cope with. It thinks about some of it and analyses that which is new or different or previously unknown and unfamiliar. A lot of information that comes in our direction does not need the brain to analyse it as it is very familiar and not consequential or threatening or different. It has been already stored and understood.

The Physical body

This needs little explanation, however it is not who we are. The body is not the person. The body houses the person and the person lays somewhere inside the body. I am not my body, but my body is the home that I inhabit. It allows me to move and live within the human experience on the earth. It is flesh and bone and it is easily damaged if I am not careful with it. I can work on my body to enhance its look and health. I need my body to live the human experience on the earth.

The soul

This part of the person is the person. The soul is who I am. I am my soul. The soul is my personality, it is my essence. I know that some of the person’s personality is governed by part of the brain. However the person is more than their brain functioning. They feel and when they feel they do not do so with their brain. It is at another part of their body that they go to for their feelings. It will be with their gut and the heart that they feel. Feelings painful and joyful go to these two places. This is where the person or the soul resides. The person resides in the gut mostly and in the heart also. The soul is the part of you that changes and develops over time. You are not the same person that you were ten years ago or even five years ago. In that time span you have had many experiences and those experiences good or bad happy or sad difficult or easy have moulded you into the human being you are today. It has given you your take on life. It has shaped your understanding of the world and what it can be to you and others. I am a therapist and very often it is this part of a person that is in the most distress when they come to me for help. I have to repair their soul, before the body will heal. Very often it is a case of sort the soul out and the body will sort itself out. This part of the person connects to all life on all levels and so it gets the biggest distress sometimes as it negotiates life.

The spirit

Now what is the spirit? If the brain governs the analytical process of the person and the soul is the person, what is the spirit?

The spirit does not do the same as the soul. It does not feel at all. It is dispassionate. The spirit of the person stands back and watches. The spirit part of the person is the observer. What does it observe? It observes you the person. It observes how you negotiate life. It takes note of everything and records everything about you and what you do. It is like a note book or a USB stick recording as you go. There is nothing that you ever do that you truly forget. It is all housed somewhere and this is where it is housed. We think that our memories come from our brain. In part they may, however it is in the spirit that everything about you is stored. The spirit is like a filling cabinet and the brain retrieves the files from the cabinet. The spirit half of the soul records. The soul and the spirit of the person sit side by side within the person.

The spirit of the person is the part of the person that is pure energy. It is the part of your being that comes directly from the source of life itself. It is the part of you that on your demise will go back to the source of life. The spirit does not interact with life as the soul does. The soul is the messy part of you feeling everything and reacting to it all. The spirit just takes note of how the soul handles life. It is dispassionate.

These two jobs need to be separated. The soul very often is a mess feeling and reacting to everything that comes its way. There needs to be a part of you that stands back and is dispassionate to keep record of how you got in the mess in the first place. Your history needs to be housed somewhere. It is in the spirt that your history is housed. When you are done with life on the earth and the human experience your spirit hands over the spirit USB stick, if you will, to the source of life and your whole life is recorded in the universe for the source of life to use as information on life. Nothing is lost from the universe life takes note of everything and it is continually adapting to information. We know that life changes from generation to generation and there is development of all species that takes place within life. The universe keeps all information safe and uses it for the development of the universe and life. The spirit goes back to the universe or God. The spirit goes back to the source of all life and hands over its information to the source of life.

Oneness

In every mystical or religious path we are told we need to recognise our oneness with God. What is that for heaven’s sake? Oneness with God! Many people don’t recognise God and so go into great debate about that. God is a word used to describe the source of all life. God is all powerful and the ultimate force of nature. It is the thing that brought all life and the universe into being. It is the universe. That force is given a human face by Christianity and in other religious paths it is given other faces, as an energy force, gods, or a god of some kind. All paths put that force above everything else and say all sprang from that force.

Now there is a clue in those words “All sprang form that great force”.

So if all sprang from this great force which some call God, that means you and I did and all things did. Mystical and religious paths say all is one and has oneness. All come from one to make many.

We can use the word “spirit” to mean essence of a thing. We are all from the main essence. We could say that the spirit and the main essence being one and the same. So the spirit can be said to be that bit of you and me and all things that came from the great source of life. It is the “God spark”. It is the bit of you and me and all things that come from the main ingredient of life. We can think of God in many ways but its essence is the source of all things. So now we can see the difference between the words soul and spirit. This is why these four words, the mind, the body, the soul and the spirit are so important to us. They describe very different aspects of the human living condition that are of great importance to the human living experience.

Spirituality

So now what of spirituality and a spiritual path? Well spirituality is the path that nourishes both the soul and the spirit. How can we do that? How is that done if it is done at all? If it is done will be dependent on what the person has decided for themselves. Do I ignore the whole idea of the spiritual and just exist?

Do I live the earthly life to the full and experience all that has to offer to the exclusion of nurturing the spirit? In that experience I feed the soul aheavy diet. I may well enjoy my self for many years but at the end of it some thing may well suffer.

Do I balance my experience by nurturing both soul and spirit? Walk a religious path alongside the earthly experience. So I can have an affair or two, drink loads of alcohol, take substances that are not good for me perhaps, travel the world and have a great time, then think about the spirit from time to time as is needed. I might think about it at my religious holidays and festivals, and at whatever ways and times that connects me to the “God source.”

Do I immerse myself in the spiritual path and just live my life exclusively nurturing my God spark, feeding the spirit with the best that living can give it? Do I then pass those learnings onto others and illuminate their path to the best spiritual nurturing they can have?

Do I sit back and analyse it all using my brain to assess the validity or futility of all of these paths?

As you can see there are many paths and each path has its own merit. No path is better or worse than the other. Each path has its merits as each path will bring something positive to the person. Each path brings experience through the living experience to the person. All paths are a road back home to the ultimate force. We all return to dust or at least our body does and our soul and spirit go home. The ultimate power of the universe, that which some call God wants back that which it gave us, that piece of itself called the spirit. A spiritual path is one that nurtures that part of us. God is the ultimate energy force that houses the best in us or the light side of us. Not the dark side of the human nature. If we follow a spiritual path we wish to enhance the best side of us. That bit that is nearest to the universal perfection that we have.

Life itself is the ultimate spiritual journey. Life takes us from the universal source of life and then sends us back to it. We are on a journey of return from the moment we are born. We are thrust into life and we are given people who are our parents and wider family and we accept that situation and get on with what comes our way from that experience. We then are trust even more into the living experience and made to learn many things and are schooled by our social systems in one way or another. We start our development of the soul from the moment we are born. The situation to which we are born into starts that development for us. We are on our spiritual journey. We are working our way back home already. To be on spiritual journey you do not have to be religious or non-religious you just have to be living. Living is the ultimate spiritual journey. It is the return home for all of us with a lot of hassles and joys thrown in to make it interesting and stretching.

A spiritual journey is not about being good or bad. It is not about being the light or dark it is about a return home. How we choose to return home and with what kind of information on our spirit USB stick is our choice. The source of life gets to look it over and it will be happy or sad at the information stored on that spirt USB. The source of life needs you to experience life and no two lives are ever the same. We are all different people having our own personal human experience. There are rules to life, for life would be chaos without rules, and so the source gives some rules for us to follow. However, if we choose to follow those rules or not is up to us as above all we must experience. At the end of life we get to make our case for the life we lived. We are all on a journey of the spirt no matter what. The path we take and if we take a spiritual path on that journey is up to us. Free will and choice is at the heart of the universal desire for you. You get to choose many things each and every day.

Religion

Religion sheds light on the way back home. It highlights the rules to that return, or at least that is what it is supposed to do. It is there to remind us that there is a home and we are not here forever just a time and then we return home. The universe is home and the universe is what we return to. All religions give their personal explanation on how the universe is organised. It does not matter what religion you choose or if you choose none at all. You will return home one day and you will have lived a life long or short good or bad. You will return home with experience and development of your soul.

Religion or no religion a spiritual path or not is up to you and always should be your choice. So what bit of you do you most wish to nourish? Is it the soul, the spirit, the mind, or the body? We all get to choose our focus.

Reiki

Now let us finally go back to the very beginning of this blog and discuss Reiki. We have now come full circle. A spiritual path nurtures the spirit and spirituality is the practice of nurturing the spirit and the soul. Living itself could be said to be the ultimate spiritual journey as it nourishes both the soul and the spirit to some capacity. Reiki is a spiritual practice and so it nurtures the spirit of the person. It enhances the practitioner’s spirit, because they connect to the source of the spirit. That is where the energy of life comes from and it is that energy that the practitioner connects too. It is that energy that the person both the practitioner and the patient or client engages with. That energy feeds the person on all levels. It feeds the body, the soul, the mind, the emotions and the spirit of the person. It enhances the person on all levels of their being. That is why it is a spiritual practice and that is why it is the very best it can be, and to be a spiritual practice does not make it less than but more than. Reiki is very effective and this is its effectiveness. Reiki connects to the source of life and it connects the person to that source, both practitioner and patient also. Reiki draws energy from that source.

We all get to choose both our focus and our path in life. We all get to choose many things each day. We get to choose if we bother to think about things and analyse things or not. All aspects of the person are important as is the method of feeding and nourishing each aspect that we choose. Each choice is a road ahead and a way forward, a method of engaging with life itself. Each choice we make is an opportunity to enhance the many aspects of ourselves.

What will you choose today? You have at the heart of your being free will and choice to do as you please.